Bursting with melody and intricacy, taking their stylistic cue from Talking Heads, Franz Ferdinand and the increasingly influential Stranglers, The Rakes require a pristine sound. Instead, singer Alan Donohoe was buried so far into the mix as to be mostly inaudible.

That Donohoe seemed such a fascinating character made his emasculation more frustrating still.

Looking for all the world like a young Nigel Havers, he was unfailingly polite ("The Arcade Fire: what a nice band"); he was sufficiently gauche to wear his backstage pass on his crotch; he moved with the curious, gawky grace of a prep school pupil auditioning for an end-of-term Gilbert and Sullivan and the crowd threw woollens at him.

Somewhere within the aural murk, there was a star trying to break though.

This low-key affair (they play Brixton Academy on 31 March) was primarily an opportunity to showcase material from their forthcoming second album, Ten New Messages, which for all its punky veneer marks a firm step forward for the Whitechapel quartet.

Underpinned by Matthew Swinnerton's angular guitarcraft, the delightfully titled The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect thundered along merrily, exuding their trademark arch warmth, while the standout Trouble and the intriguingly titled When Tom Cruise Cries suggest The Rakes are in it for the long haul.

If the band made the best of things, so did the crowd. There was moshing (albeit student moshing, which doesn't really count) to the familiar Retreat and the closing anthem Strasbourg and massed clapping to the Radio Ga- Ga section of 22 Grand Job.

The Rakes were with us for less than an hour and they will surely have better nights. But on an evening where elements conspired against them, they came through. They may go far: their soundman may not be going with them.